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53
WORK WITH IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
(Miss I. 0. D. Harrison, S.S.D., Assistant Principal Social Worker)
It is interesting to reflect on the development and changing facets of my work since I was appointed
in 1959 by the former Paddington Borough Council to assist with the problems concerning or
involving immigrants in the Borough and with the problems of integration. While the function has
not changed, the problems and situations arising therefrom have taken different shapes and emphasis.
During the first few years my work was concerned to a very large extent with the difficulties of
adaptation—of helping newly arrived immigrants to adapt to a sharply contrasting environment
and a strange and complicated social and legislative framework, and, above all, to a community
where they were brought into contact with people with a wide spectrum of different attitudes
towards them, ranging from hostility to overt and simple curiosity. Equally I was concerned with
assisting the receiving community to adapt itself to this incursion of patently different people with
different cultural patterns, and to the situations which inevitably resulted.
It followed that immigrants would, over a period of time, become orientated in a competitive
industrialised environment and that as the indigenous society became familiar with their presence,
and the social services more equipped to deal with the problems which now involved them, the
more immediate problems of adaption would ease.
The receiving society is now very familiar with coloured immigrants living and working in the
community and more knowledgeable about their background and cultural patterns. Nevertheless,
it has to be remembered that neither familiarity nor understanding need necessarily mean acceptance;
and rejection, resentment and mistrust can exist on both sides, though the manifestations of
these may be subtle or devious.
Certain attitudes and opinions exist, which sometimes result from earlier unhappy experiences
of both sides. Memories of landlord/tenant disputes, harrassment and exploitation at a time when
immigrants were so vulnerable are sometimes factors in forming points of view which can complicate
an otherwise straightforward problem. Therefore, in assisting with many of the difficulties brought
to my attention the emphasis has needed to be more on conciliation than social education.
Although the City Council has most of the social problems common to the big cities like London,
it has nevertheless avoided some of the painful racial situations that from time to time have arisen
in certain other parts of the country, where immigrants have settled in sizeable numbers. This I feel
sure has been in no small way due to the lead given by the Council in the early stages of immigration,
and the voluntary effort which was put into educating both sides. However, attitudes and opinions
are not based only on local experiences. National events and trends, which in respect of race
relations continue to receive a great deal of publicity, can be reflected in the attitudes of people
everywhere. When counselling and conciliating it is necessary to understand these trends and
events.
Despite the process of adaptation and understanding which has taken place, there continued
to be a large number of personal problems brought to me by the people themselves, or referred
from a variety of sources. I refer to the types of problems which can best be dealt with by an officer
with particular understanding of the emotional strains and demands which the process of acculturation
makes on immigrants and their children. Among these have continued to be a number of
matrimonial and extra-marital difficulties and problems of relationships between parents and
children.
Parents who themselves are undergoing immigrant stresses, in raising their children, are faced
with a dual problem—that which all today's parents have of bringing up their teenage children
while maintaining economic and intellectual ascendancy over them, and also that of bringing
them up as young Englanders, who will expect to take their place equally in English society. The
present generation of immigrants may feel that they have come here to find work with good wages
and to improve their standard of living, and therefore feel no strong desire to be integrated. The
new generation, educated and raised in an English setting and naturally expecting to be fully
accepted as part of it, are having to face situations where their cultural and family loyalties may be
questioned.
The emotional strain involved on the part of both parents and children cannot be over-estimated.
Casualties must be expected and do occur and special understanding of these casualties is needed.
It is generally accepted that disrupted and disturbed family backgrounds contribute to the causes
of anti-social and delinquent juvenile behaviour. We should be surprised therefore if we do not
begin to see breakdowns occurring among young people of immigrant (or mixed) parents who not
only have the stresses of immigrant problems such as special housing difficulties, but also the strains
of acculturation.
The problems of "New Englanders" have always engendered my particular interest because
their attitudes towards society, and society's towards them will inevitably be projected on future